Why Michele Bachmann is Fortunate to Live at This Time

If you’ve ever watched someone suffer a severe migraine headache, it can be outwardly obvious that there’s something going on inside their skull that you don’t want going on inside your skull. It’s hard to hide intense pain. That’s probably why migraine headache symptoms were routinely interpreted as a sign of demonic possession 300 or so years ago in America. I happen to know a little bit about this. A distant relative of mine, Elizabeth Clawson, was one of the last women to be accused of witchcraft, and she stood trial in Stamford Connecticut in 1692. She was actually acquitted, which is why she survived to raise a family that cascaded down through the generations until I could finally join the tribe 250 years later. I mention this now because I’ve done a fair amount of research on the witch trials in New England (there were other locations besides Salem), and I can report with absolute certainty that more than one woman was burned at the stake simply because she was seen by other people while displaying outward symptoms of what was certainly a severe migraine headache.

Migraines are in the news this week because Michele Bachmann is reported to suffer occasionally from this affliction, but this blog isn’t a rant about the prospect of a female U.S. President having a migraine while her finger is on the nuclear trigger. That wouldn’t be my problem— not unless Boulder Colorado was on her target list, which— come to think of it— might be the case. No, that’s not why I’m raising the subject. I mention Michele Bachmann and migraine headaches because she needs to be ever thankful that she lives in the 21st century instead of the 17th century. Back then, suffering with migraines, she might very well have been suspected of communing with Satan as a witch. And living as she does with a hardcore bible thumper it would’ve been hard to hide the signs, which he would have immediately recognized as something offensive to God. Deciding what’s offensive to God and then inflicting that decision on other people is what bible thumpers do, and Michele Bachmann’s husband is notorious for this. He’s even built a cottage industry abound it. Doctor Bachmann Ph.D. spends his time these days “curing” homosexuality which he’s decided is a curse from God, but three hundred years ago he would most certainly have been building fires under the feet of some women with severe migraine headaches. Michele is fortunate to have been living at this time.